This was the year that was

By Stephen Holden
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, NEW YORK
Friday, Dec 29, 2006, Page 16

The Queen PHOTOS: AGNEICES

Bond bounced back, Borat drew lawsuits and laughs, Pirates plundered the box office once again, and the tragedy of 9/11 made it to the big screen.

And even though TV, cable, DVDs, the Internet and video games all tried to keep folks busy at home, people still went to the movies by the millions.

Every movie fan has his or her own top 10. The only reason critics should list theirs is to stand exposed before readers, letting them see where tastes mesh and where they mash.

As always, this list includes films that have been released internationally but have yet to make it to Taiwan.

Farewell 2006; show us something good, 2007.

1. United 93: There were no stars, and the story's outcome was well-known. But director Paul Greengrass fully imagined and faithfully re-created the tension inside and outside of the airplane that passengers recaptured before terrorists could use it as a weapon on 9/11. In doing so, he delivered the year's most harrowing, terrifying and breathtakingly real-feeling film. Inspiring, exhausting, riveting and groundbreaking.

Hard Candy

2. The Departed: The year's most entertaining film and director Martin Scorsese's best effort in more than two decades, which is saying something. A delicious cast — Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen and a rocking Alec Baldwin — took to the streets for this tale of duplicity amongst cops and crooks, marvelously adapted by William Monahan from a Hong Kong thriller.

3. The Descent: The most innovative, energetic horror film of the decade so far. Director and writer Neil Marshall followed a group of adventuresome women on a spelunking trip that went terribly wrong in both interpersonal and interspecies ways. Marshall's sense of rhythm and release was masterful, and he found new ways to freak out an audience even in these jaded times.

World Trade Center

4. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan: Will we ever see its like again? British comic Sacha Baron Cohen's incisive and ceaselessly funny critique of American isolationism and Western elitism featured the most unconsciously funny people on earth — average Americans. All the world's a stage, Cohen knew how to use it. The result was hilarious ... and a bit frightening.

The Departed

5. The Queen: The dissonant yet symbiotic relationship between the rich and the common folk, particularly in the modern world, was dissected openly in Stephen Frears' fine film about the British royals at the time of Princess Diana's death. Helen Mirren was a contained wonder as Queen Elizabeth II.

United 93

6. Little Children: Kate Winslet was superb as a desperate suburban mom who had a fling with stay-at-home dad Patrick Wilson in Todd Fields' dark dramedy, set against the backdrop of a community trying to expel a paroled child molester. Try not to relate to someone in this movie.

7. World Trade Center: Director Oliver Stone surprised nearly everyone with this decidedly old-fashioned yet high-gloss story of two cops trapped beneath the rubble of 9/11. A classic ode to both individual heroism and the decency that triumphs when people work together.

8. The Painted Veil: Naomi Watts and Edward Norton offered portraits in emotional desperation in this tale of a 1920s doctor who took his unfaithful bride to live in a disease-ravaged corner of China. Culture clash, the onset of modern times and clotted personalities faced with primal truths combined for a film that was both devastating and rich.

9. Hard Candy: Ka-boom! No film this year was less expected, more rattling or more tense. Thirty-year-old Patrick Wilson tried to hook up with a 15-year-old Ellen Page, and both he and the audience got a lot more than expected. Taut, terrifying, sexually provocative and terrific.

10. The Fountain: Am I crazy! I only gave this a "B" when I reviewed it. Still, writer and director Darren Aronofsky's wildly romantic and occasionally silly exploration of mortality, love and natural limits was the year's most ambitious film, a time-traveling visual feast. It's flawed, and not for everyone by any means, but months after first seeing it, I still think about it all the time. Courageous and kooky, beautiful and blissfully mad.